tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2499661274163551793.post3567934848881583279..comments2024-01-02T15:12:14.699+00:00Comments on War Poetry: G K Chesterton: 'For a War Memorial'Tim Kendallhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17917270014209480898noreply@blogger.comBlogger4125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2499661274163551793.post-10378545796491825352012-01-01T11:33:05.421+00:002012-01-01T11:33:05.421+00:00Happy New Year! Thank you for the suggestions. I t...Happy New Year! Thank you for the suggestions. I think that 'huckster' was current because of Yeats, but I also think that the conjunction of 'huckster', the market-place, and the war memorial, as well as the conflict between capitalism and remembrance, prove that the later of the two poems knows the earlier. <br /><br />Very interesting about the 'usurers'. I think that your suggestion is right, George. And my best guess for the composition date of Mew's poem is July 1919, in the three weeks between the commission of the cenotaph and its unveiling. That would give Mew the freedom to create her own cenotaph without reference to Lutyens's wood-and-plaster structure.Tim Kendallhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17917270014209480898noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2499661274163551793.post-64247025524989816812011-12-30T10:56:37.615+00:002011-12-30T10:56:37.615+00:00When it comes to placing Chesterton's poem, th...When it comes to placing Chesterton's poem, the crucial question is perhaps: Which was the Committee that would not have suggested it?<br />I've a hypothesis that may or may not be right.<br />When the Cenotaph was erected, it was under the auspices of Sir Alfred Mond, a target of some of Chesterton's most vitriolic journalism. In issue after issue of his weekly paper, 'The New Witness' in 1918, Mond was accused of being a traitor to Britain, since some of his firms had allegedly traded with the enemy. Mond was, of course, Jewish, and the attacks on him were part of the consistent anti-Semitism of the paper. (T.S. Eliot's 'A Cooking Egg', written at about this time, mentions Mond in a mocking way that may hint at this controversy.)<br />The contrast in Chesterton's poem between righteous soldiers and ignoble profiteers was a trope very often found in writing of the time, but Chesterton's choice of the word 'usurers' is one that chimes with anti-Semitic discourse. Is Chesterton making an implicit contrast between the 'men of England' who died, and the man heading the committee formed to commemorate them, whom he would not have regarded as a 'man of England'. At one point, he (probably jokingly, though it's a sinister joke) suggested that Jews should be tolerated in England, and should be allowed to hold any job – as long as they wore Arab robes to signify their foreignness.) <br />That kind of animus does not seem to be there in Mew's poem. The question is, which memorial could she be thinking of? Very few WW1 memorials showed the figure of a Winged Victory, or any other symbol of triumphalism. But by September 1919 very few memorials had been built, and the cenotaph was still just a plaster-and-lath temporary structure, so I think that it is just an imaginary memorial that she is writing about.George Simmershttp://greatwarfiction.wordpress.comnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2499661274163551793.post-79982894604217112932011-12-29T10:35:23.759+00:002011-12-29T10:35:23.759+00:00Sullivan's Chesterton bibliography does not me...Sullivan's Chesterton bibliography does not mention a magazine publication before the poem was collected in The Ballad of St Barbara. Yet the poem seems to be linked to a specific occasion (assuming the Committee is an actual one, not merely fictitious), and is making a public statement. I wonder if it featured in any of GKC's many public speeches. He wrote so much that he's a difficult author to keep track of.George Simmershttp://greatwarfiction.wordpress.comnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2499661274163551793.post-53950578095768361352011-12-26T20:13:45.605+00:002011-12-26T20:13:45.605+00:00Could both Mew and Chesterton have derived the wor...Could both Mew and Chesterton have derived the word from a third source? Personally I'd associate 'huckster' with Yeats more than any other poet.Roger Allenhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11012987757094423896noreply@blogger.com